Palestinians trying to change status quo in Jerusalem, PM says

Jerusalem is not a settlement and all areas in which Israel is constructing in the capital will remain a part of Israel under any peace agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday.

Speaking ahead of a meeting in Jerusalem with the European Union’s new policy chief Federica Mogherini, Netanyahu said Israel was committed “to maintaining the status quo” in the Temple Mount for all faiths, and accused Muslim leaders of conducting a “campaign of vilification and slander that presents Israel as seeking to undermine the mosque” and to change access policies there, which he stressed was “absolutely” not on the table.

In fact, he charged, it was the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood that were attempting to change the status quo in which Jews are allowed to visit the compound but not pray there.

“We’ve watched with growing concern the fact that Islamist parties including the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, including (PA President Mahmoud Abbas), have joined in a campaign of inflammation, calling for any action, including violent action, to stop Jews from exercising their right to merely enter the Mount,” Netanyahu said. “This is an arrangement that has been there for many decades, since the Six Day War.

“We stand by the rights of Jews to go to the Mount. They pray in the Western Wall, but they do have a right to go (to the Temple Mount),” he said. “We stand by the right of Muslims to go to the Mount and pray in the al-Aqsa Mosque. They’ve been doing that for many, many decades and will continue to do that.”

Netanyahu stressed Israel would not accept violence in its capital and would restore calm and order to Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is a very sensitive issue. We treat it with sensitivity,” he said. “But it’s also our capital and as such it is not a settlement. The neighborhoods in which we are living…and we’ve been building, have been there for close to 50 years…Everybody knows that in any peace arrangement they will remain part of Israel.”

Netanyahu also spoke of the Iranian nuclear threat and warned that allowing the Islamic republic to become a threshold nuclear power “would be a big mistake” adding that this would ultimately destabilize not just the region but the entire world.

Speaking, after Netanyahu, Mogherini said the EU was keen for a “new start” in the Middle East under the new European Commission and sought to “have a major role in supporting a solution.”

She said recent events in Jerusalem were “extremely worrying” and called leaders on both sides to calm tensions in the streets.

Mogherini also spoke against “unilateral steps” in reference to the Palestinian Authority’s stated intention to bypass negotiations and demand a UN-backed timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. The EU would much rather seek a regional solution that would see Israel living in peace with its Arab neighbors and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, she said.